OpenGL Headline News

Celestia is an open source application for 3D visualization of space, from structures as small as spacecraft or as vast as galaxy clusters. After nearly two years of development since the last release, version 1.5.0 is now available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. This is the biggest update of Celestia ever, with significant improvements in rendering quality, accuracy, and flexibility. Celestia 1.5.0 uses OpenGL 2.0 shaders extensively. Shaders are used to compute atmospheric scattering effects, giving a much more realistic appearance to planets with atmospheres. A Lunar-Lambert photometric model was introduced to more accurately model the reflectance characteristics of dust covered bodies such as the moon. Per-pixel lighting effects are used for better looking specular surfaces.